Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Monday night's loss to the Seattle Seahawks could have had a very different outcome had the San Francisco 49ers wide receivers done quarterback
Jimmy Garoppolo some favors by hauling in a few more catchable passes.
Having Emmanuel Sanders available for the entire game could have helped, too.
Could the 49ers find some more help elsewhere? How much confidence does the team have in the current group following the disappointing defeat, the team's first of the season?
General manager John Lynch
joined KNBR on Thursday and was asked about the 49ers' receiver situation, and he discussed the topic at length.
"We'll always look to try to improve ourselves," Lynch said on the "Tolbert, Krueger and Brooks" show. "I mean, a lot of that has come and gone. The trade deadline has passed. There is another avenue of looking at other people's practice squads.
"Emmanuel was a little bit of a unique situation in that he's such a veteran, and he was playing in a very similar offense. Coming in mid-stream, and doing that is difficult.
"We do have belief in this group. They had a rough night the other night. We expect them to catch the football better, and I think we left over 100 yards in drops out there."
Lynch believes Garoppolo's performance, which
has been criticized itself, would have been looked at very differently had the drops not occurred.
Garoppolo finished the game 24-of-46 for 248 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
"You can't have seven drops," Lynch continued. "We had that the other night, and they were big. At the end of the day, if we just catch five of those, I think everybody thinks Jimmy played a great game, and we find a way to win that football game.
"We're constantly looking to improve. I will tell you we've got a lot of belief in this group. Marquise (Goodwin) has had a tough road these last couple of years. We've dealt with that, and I think he's going to come out on the other end. We need guys like he, and (Dante) Pettis, and Richie James, and Kendrick Bourne --"
Lynch paused there to discuss Bourne in more detail, saying that he believes the third-year receiver has some of the better hands in the league. That's a similar evaluation to one provided by head coach Kyle Shanahan.
"I think Bourne has as good of hands as anyone in this league, and sometimes when you do that you don't focus, you don't concentrate on it because you're never scared of dropping it,"
Shanahan said this week.
Lynch noted that the team would not lose confidence in its receivers because of the poor outing on Monday night.
"We'll get Emmanuel back at some point, and we expect these guys to go make plays," Lynch added.
You can listen to the entire conversation with Lynch below.
Well, that was disappointing to watch. Not just for fans but the San Francisco 49ers. Head coach Kyle Shanahan watched as his team surrendered a 10-point lead and suffered a second-half collapse to the Chicago Bears. The matchup many felt would be a gimme for the Niners in their opener ended in a 19-10 defeat and an 0-1 start to the season.
What was Shanahan's message to his team after the game? The coach didn't see anything wrong with his players' efforts. There were just too many costly mistakes on which Chicago ended up capitalizing.
"First thing, it starts out with is the intent and how hard everybody goes," Shanahan said. "I never felt anything wrong with that throughout the game, but you're not going to win a lot of games when you miss those opportunities
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But things haven't exactly gone according to plan, and on Sunday, the plan imploded when Trey Lance broke his ankle—an injury that will cost him the remainder of the 2022 season.
Much has been made about how well (or poorly) Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have managed the 49ers quarterbacks. I've seen many fans and media blaming Shanahan for the current situation. Many have criticized the duo for how messy the QB situation has been since trading away two first-round round picks, and swapping another first-round pick, to draft a quarterback. Have
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan wishes he would have called a different play than the one that resulted in an injury to Trey Lance, but he's not about to second guess the play itself or why the call was made.
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Say this for the 49ers defense -- they certainly learned their lesson after a forgettable outing in Week 1.
The 49ers actually played well on defense for most of the team's 19-10 road loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 1, but mistakes down the stretch such as missed assignments and costly penalties that kept drives alive proved to be instrumental in the Bears' comeback from a 10-0 third quarter deficit. Things started off similar in the team's 27-7 home win over the Seattle Seahawks in Week 2, but this time the defense made sure they ended differently.
The Seahawks fell into a 20-0 hole but made a potentially game-changing play in the third quarter when they blocked a field goal and returned it for a touchdown to cut the 49ers' lead to 20-7. It was reminiscent to
